The present invention relates to a magneto-optic recording apparatus such as a magneto-optic disk apparatus using a magneto-optic recording medium, for example, a magneto-optic disk, and particularly relates to an overwritable magneto-optic recording apparatus which can perform overwriting and an error check at the same time by using a laser light source. The "overwriting" is a function for rewriting previously written recorded information into new one by overwriting, and "error check" is a function for reading the overwritten recorded information and confirming it.
Conventionally, examples of an overwritable magneto-optic recording apparatus include that of a system using two lightspots as described in IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol. MAG-20, No. 5, p. 1013, 1984, and that of a magnetic field modulation method in which while a recording film is irradiated with a light beam with a constant intensity, a magnetic field modulated in accordance with recording information is applied to an area irradiated with the light beam, as described in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publications No. 51-107121 and No. 59-215008, and Japanese Patent Post-Examination Publication No. 60-48806. The present invention particularly relates to a magneto-optic recording apparatus according to that of the latter, magnetic field modulation method.
In order to improve the data processing speed in a magneto-optic recording apparatus, a function for performing an error check within a one disk rotation in addition to an overwriting function is desirable. In a conventional overwritable magneto-optic recording apparatus, however, no consideration has been given on such an error check function.